Rangers power play finally looking up after latest…
It’ll take more than a five-game stretch for the Rangers’ power play to return to the extent of past seasons. But the latest small step has been encouraging for the Blueshirts.
With Oliver Bjorkstrand’s objective in their 5-1 win over the Canucks on Friday to cap a four-game West Coast journey, the Rangers have now tallied a objective in 4 of their past 5 video games — a 4-for-15 stretch that improved their success charge in 2026-27 to 20.6 %, a mark that sits 18th in the league getting into play Saturday. Everything began to shift when head coach Mike Sullivan switched his traces six video games in the past and started having star defenseman Adam Fox skate with both teams when attainable, and some of the early returns with the new items have recommended a trace of progress with the once-struggling group.
In the second period Friday, Bjorkstrand veered into the bumper space before accumulating a move from J.T. Miller in the slot and scoring. Mika Zibanejad, Tye Kartye and Pavel Dorofeyev have also scored across the stretch since Sullivan made the modifications, giving both of the new-look items a pair of targets. The main change stemmed from Miller’s demotion to the second line and Gabe Perreault’s elevation to the first unit, but Kartye also joined the Blueshirts’ second group while Fox, with Sean Durzi out, quarterbacked both items as long as he didn’t need to skate down the ice following clears too many instances.
The latest uptick in man-advantage manufacturing has added to special-teams success that already consists of one of the league’s best penalty-kill items. After killing all 4 of their penalties against Vancouver, which marked a league-leading 14th time this season when they’ve had a excellent sport on the penalty kill, the Rangers sat second in the NHL with an 89.1 % success charge.
Oliver Bjorkstrand of the New York Rangers smiles during a huddle against the Vancouver Canucks on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, in Vancouver, British Columbia. NHLI via Getty Images
“I thought we spent a lot of time in our zone from the penalty-kill standpoint, but I thought those guys really dug in,” Sullivan said of the penalty-kill unit Friday, particularly referencing Noah Laba, Will Cuylle, Vladislav Gavrikov and Marcus Pettersson when they bought caught on the ice for long shifts. “They competed hard.”
Chris Kreider received’t get a probability at a Garden return this 12 months.
The former Rangers star, who was traded to the Ducks in June 2025 and made his MSG return last 12 months, was set to play his second sport at his former home rink since the deal when the Blueshirts host the Canadiens on Monday, but Kreider was injured during Thursday’s sport against the Bruins and given a recovery timeline of 6-8 weeks.
Kreider, who inked a one-year deal with the Canadiens for the 2026-27 marketing campaign to be part of an Eastern Conference contender, had collected three targets and 9 factors through 19 video games.
With his help on Alexis Lafrenière’s objective in the second period Friday, Zibanejad prolonged his level streak to 5 video games, and Fox recorded his team-leading twenty third level of the season with the secondary help on Bjorkstrand’s power-play objective.
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